Hack

​Sphero is probably best known for its BB-8 rolling droid, but has recently been aiming its products at future programmers and makers. The company has opted to take to Kickstarter for its latest bot, which has been designed to be tweaked and hacked by adult hobbyists and young roboticists alike.​

Desktop 3D printers generally spend most of their life in a basement workshop or home office. YouTuber Thomas Sanladerer wanted something that could go where he did so modified a small inexpensive unit to run on battery power and be controlled with a smartphone.​

​​Since 2007, the Pwn2Own computer hacking contest has tasked security researchers with finding new holes in common software and devices, but never before has a car been up for grabs. Tesla will be offering a Model 3 as a target for hackers at this year’s event.

Like many people at this time of year, Leo Currie has a decorated tree in his living room. But this one is a bit different, as anyone can open an online landing page and take control of the lights snaking through the branches.

When many personal accounts are compromised it is often because someone simply guessed an obvious password. In a new list of the most commonly used passwords of 2018, it's astoundingly revealed that a huge number of people still use "password" as their password.

​If you want to brighten up your playing, you can have LEDs installed in the neck, but what about all that idle space on the body? Sparkfun's Andy England was recently asked to light up one of three custom guitars, and has now modified it to play video animations on the body itself.​

​We live in a connected world, and our smartphones can control all sorts of gadgets and appliances around the home. But what of your "dumb" tech? The latest project from the Frolic Studio could offer an easy way to teach your old gadgets new tricks.​

​Instrument modder Frank Piesik has combined 3D printing, electronic hackery and touch sensing to create the ElektroCaster that bridges the gap between traditional guitars like a Telecaster and full-on electronic sound makers like the (no longer in production) Kitara.​

Facebook has removed another batch of pages, groups and accounts for "coordinated inauthentic behavior." This time originating in Iran, the pages targeted hundreds of thousands of people across the Middle East, Latin America, UK and US with political content designed to shape their opinions.

Facebook has just revealed it removed 32 pages and accounts it claims were part of a “coordinated inauthentic” campaign similar to actions perpetrated by Russian sources in the lead up to the 2016 US presidential election. No source for the accounts has been tracked yet.

​We've seen a number of frankly odd creations from serial synth scientist Sam Battle of Look Mum No Computer over the years. His latest build turns a bunch of cute and cuddly robot toys from the late 1990s into the stuff of horror movie nightmares.​

​Security researchers from Cisco’s Talos intelligence team have analyzed samples of the malware​ directed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony and verified that a cyber-attack did occur and was aimed at disrupting the event.